In
1888 the "Nederlandsch - Amerikaansche Stoomvaart
Maatschappij"
(NASM) introduced a regular passage to Argentina for which they used
five
ships: "Pieter Caland" - "Schiedam" - "Zaandam" - "Edam" and "Leerdam".
The Argentinian government offered free passage in order to stimulate
emigrants
to choose for their country rather than North America. This proved to
be
successful because in 1889 more than 4000 Dutch emigrated to Argentina,
quite a lot of whom came from the clay area of northern Friesland such
as Ferwerderadeel.
The sea-voyage took abt. 5 - 7 weeks including stops at
Dover,
Boulogne,
La Coruna, Lisbon, Madeira and Las Palmas. From Las Palmas the ships
crossed
the Atlantic Ocean and headed for Montevideo. From there on to Buenos
Aires
which took another 3 days. For some emigrants the voyage was
disasterous:
"The journey took seven weeks which was seven weeks too long for
Grandma.
She has been sick all the way, the poor soul". Furthermore the voyage
did
not always end the way emigrants were hoping for: on Monday December
16,
1889 at 02.00 am the ss "Leerdam"
collided with the steamer "Gaw Quan Sia". Newspapers reported that the
"Leerdam" left Amsterdam on December 15 with 600 persons on board, 426
of them being emigrants. Amongst these emigrants were abt. 50 people
from
Ferwerderadeel including the Regnerus family.
It is known that the Argentina adventure turned out to be
a
desillusion
for many of the emigrants. They were taken right to the middle of
nowhere
to farm the land in the most dreadful circumstances as a consequence of
which many of the emigrants died, often from hunger. In 1890 hundreds
returned
to their home country. That same year the NASM stopped this
so-called
"La Plata passage" because there was not much interest in emigration to
Argentina anymore, presumably due to bad news from the emigrants to
their
relatives back home and, of course, the horror stories of those who had
returned. Some succeeded to move on to the USA such as the family of
Leendert
Tieles Berkenpas. Their call for help was not in vain: a minister in
Grand
Rapids raised funds to have them come over. According to a number of
letters
which Jan Cornelis Koornstra from Koudum sent to the folks back home,
things
worked out better for him and his family. These letters give a
fascinating
impression of the passage,the arrival and their attempts to make a
living
in Argentina. Both the Koornstra and Berkenpas families were on board
the
"Schiedam" which set out for
Argentina
on september 25, 1889 from Amsterdam
Further you will find a study by Dr. Robert P. Swierenga
about
Dutch
immigrants in Argentina in which he also makes comparisons with the
situation
in North America at the time. We are most grateful to Dr. Swierenga for
granting us permission to put his article on our website.